


Shade no. rose water

by myoue



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: (Tinder), Alternate Universe - Online Dating, M/M, Questioning, Sexuality Crisis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-12
Updated: 2018-05-12
Packaged: 2019-05-05 21:22:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14627291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myoue/pseuds/myoue
Summary: For Yuuri, online dating is for finding a lover as much as it is finding something to do at night. Swipe right means you’re both incredibly intimidating and possibly prince charming.





	Shade no. rose water

**Author's Note:**

> i honestly can't believe there isn't already an established tag for Tinder. this story is inspired by every single piece of media where maybe you saw a person of a certain gender and then you're out there just feeling things. real life tends to let me down a lot.

 

Dear Mom and Dad—it’s past one o’clock in the morning.

Yuuri is anxious, writhing, and sleep-deprived. His chest roars thunderously loud for no apparent reason, trying his best to close his eyes and think calm, happy thoughts in the way they’ve always always taught him to, but nothing seems to work.

His parents should already know by now that this is some sort of a condition, maybe, or it’s sleep apnea, possibly. But they have neither the funds nor the wherewithal to admit that it’s a thing legitimate enough to get checked out.

Lately, Yuuri is sad and lonely and has been for far too long. His body is refusing to let him sleep because this is a _crisis_ and, god forbid, if he doesn’t do something about it right now, right this second, then not only will he die, he will suffer a horrible and stifling death all the way through to the bitter end.

That’s extreme, he tells himself back, blinking up at the pure and untouched moonlight that leaks across the ceiling of his room. Nobody can actually die of loneliness, that’s not a thing. His parents would reassure him. Please, can he sleep now?

But it’s his chest, the physicality of him and not his mind, that still screams at him, in an argumentative assault, unlistening and desperate, that scorches through him like acidic wildfire. He hasn’t been out of his room in a week. It feels like guilt. He hasn’t been taking care of himself. Things feel so precarious that it’s as simple as letting go; the tears come all too easily. He clenches his teeth in an attempt to contain it all, sinking down into his bed, choking back hard gasps in midnight black. He doesn’t have anyone to talk to.

Turning to his side and bathing in the blue light of his phone, he vows to stop counting down the hours if he can so help it.

He flicks from the defaulted _women only_ option to both _men and women_ with trembling fingers and a disconnected consciousness.

 _Swipe, swipe, swipe_.

That’s what his night consists of.

He’s looking for a good time, that’s what he says anyway. But is that what he’s really here for?

The pick up lines kill him slowly from the inside out, nonsensical and dragging, and it’s unfortunate because he’d probably be into it if it were any other time. Or maybe if it were just the right person. None of them hit with as much impact as he’d like.

This guy—he’s straight. Swipe left. This girl—he’s just not sure. Left.

_Hey Yuuri, 23! How’s your night going?_

This guy—he’s 73 kilometres away.

He’s wearing a long coat in his main picture, unbuttoned at the front and a loose scarf, sideswept bangs, and mid stride—on his way home to his millionaire loft and his dog. The same breed that Yuuri’s was. He’s been feeling so sorry.

Yuuri types out, _Considering it’s been three hours since I opened this app and I’m still in my own bed, not so good._

_HAHA, same with me. Slim pickings out there, huh?_

_Yeah._

_What are you here for tonight, Yuuri? Anything I can help with? :)_

_I’m into guys lately._

_Nice! Just lately though?_

_Yeah._

_You’re gay?_

Suffice it to say, he doesn’t blame anyone, let alone his parents, for not knowing this specific thing. Yuuri’s never actually admitted this out loud to anyone at all. Though, it’s never been a thing he’s purposefully kept in the dark. In fact, he’s never quite known it enough to be anything at all. Just in case he’s been wrong this whole time. Saying something at all feels like too huge a step to accidentally make a mistake. He might have been waiting to develop a thicker skin.

But maybe it’s the frankness of this app and the anonymity of the person on the other side that it doesn’t feel as worrying and stressful to admit such a thing. He can say what he wants without any of the consequences (however accepting people are) or commitments (however weak-minded he is) or long form explanations that take a lot out of him.

_I might be._

The rush of relief he feels is nothing he could have ever expected when he receives, a lighthearted _Hahaha don’t worry, I am too!_

But Yuuri doesn’t know for sure. He’s still questioning. Or rather it feels like there isn’t enough convincing evidence to make a tightly compacted conclusion.

Yuuri is asked if he’s ever wanted to kiss any men, or go further than that, and such a question, even in all its simplicity, is one he can’t answer. He oscillates between ‘I wouldn’t be opposed, but isn’t that human decency?’ and ‘I’m not a very sexual person which makes things irritatingly harder to know’ and ‘Loneliness is probably clouding my judgement.’

 _I kissed a boy and I liked it,_ the guy on the other side tells him with an encouraging smiley, _Nothing else really to it._

 _Like the song?_ Yuuri ponders.

_Yes, but with a boy._

Oh, it’s something so simple, isn’t it? First loves, high school age, innocent and coquettish. Yuuri had almost forgotten such things existed.

It would start in gym class in grass-stained shorts, continue in empty scribbled-up washroom stalls, all the way up to graduation. They’d be a love that slow danced at a school function after one of them would be dared to by their group of friends, putting arms around each other’s shoulders and having no idea what to do. The ballad version of a popular pop song that played then would become theirs, for at least a little while after that. There’d be glances during classes, tossed Sharpie notes, and whiteout on the soles of Converse—at multiple times having their seats separated for talking too much, only moving back once they thought the teacher had forgotten. There’d be waiting at each other’s lockers and at the end of hallways to walk home together in spring rain under the same umbrella. One of them would be asked if they would take the other to prom, and this, Yuuri is saddened to hear, is how the story would come to an end.

_Sorry for talking so much! It’s 5 AM!_

Yuuri doesn’t let him apologize. It could be the late hour or the lack of sleep or the sunrise sneaking in through the window shades that has him feeling emotional.

He himself used to attend his classes so absurdly diligently, used to bite his lip until it was raw, used to think about the girls who passed him paper in class, saving pictures of pretty boys to his computer and thinking nothing of it.

But not once does it ever come to his mind to connect a beautiful person with the ability to strike up a conversation. He’s awkward, antisocial, a debilitating virgin, and a million trillion other things that he can’t properly confront. He’s always been a mess of pretend, putting on so many layers of false self-confidence and elaborate character in desperate hopes that some of it will seep through to his real personality, making things infinitely easier, becoming something permanent and without effort.

He tells Victor, 27 that he’s cute and handsome too, and he mentions that he would very much like to meet his dog sometime.

Maybe he’s attracted to the simple hope that Victor gives him—faith that he can do it, faith in him as a person, and that there’s an answer out there to a question that Yuuri doesn’t necessarily know how to ask.

He drifts off to sleep while dawn breaks, thinking vaguely that he definitely wouldn’t have treated Victor the same way that boy did all those years ago.

-

At the very back of the drug mart next to prescription pick-up is where Yuuri finds a whole shelf dedicated to condom brands.

The selection is more extensive than that of a convenience store, and the sheer amount of colour and kind is enough to make Yuuri wonder if there are some people whose goal it is to try one of each. It would be a challenge. And then Yuuri thinks—some people have categorically different lifestyles from him.

He keeps his eyes forward, trying to pretend like he doesn’t notice the other customers passing by behind him.

His parents periodically ask him if he’s okay, and his fingers this time hover over the keys for _I don’t… think so_. Things that he was originally fine with start to bother him. His feelings are easily swayed and time is too a good bargainer. He knows the solution is always something as easy as knowing where to look and taking it home to settle with, so why does it have to feel so wildly difficult?

-

Dear Mom and Dad—it’s love at first sight. At least, he hopes to god it is.

Victor sets the standard for what it should be like, Yuuri thinks, distorting reality with his flowing silver hair and overflowing confidence for all things self-acceptance.

Yuuri admires his care and critique, the way the colour of his gloves matches the colour of his scarf, and the gracious ease with which he goes the extra mile, literally, as he meets for coffee at a place only several paces from Yuuri’s home yet several thousand from his own. Yuuri has no idea how such a being could end up on a dating app, enthusiastically telling him he looks so much cuter in person.

“Now, let’s discuss your budding sexuality,” Victor says with a cool smile, inching forward across the table until his hands overtake Yuuri’s and his chair is at the angle of a balancing act.

“W-Why!” Yuuri splutters, heat from his hands traveling up his arms to settle inflamed on his face.

“Frankly, you intrigue me.”

“I might not be… that way… after all.” Yuuri laughs nervously, frankly a little intimidated himself. He can’t stop fidgeting in his seat, can’t stop marveling at the way Victor’s attention focuses solely on him. “I deserve no intrigue.”

“On the contrary, the idea of turning someone gay,” Victor sighs, elongated, “has always been a dream of mine.” He smiles at Yuuri with his cheeks and his shoulders, like he can’t help himself.

And Yuuri keeps finding himself breathless. “Am, am I supposed to be discovering or turning?”

“A little of both, I should hope!”

Yuuri couldn’t sleep for at least a week after that first night, the heart pangs turning less guilt-induced and more an excited loop of when and how long and until when he can continue this crazy streak.

“If I were anything less than what you hoped, would I have been worth the trouble?” Yuuri asks offhandedly, sticking his hands underneath his legs. He says it like a question, but in truth he’s hoping to death that Victor won’t have regrets about him, no matter what happens. He doesn’t think he could bear it.

Victor claims he has no idea what Yuuri is talking about. “You’re too hard on yourself. Every single guy that I’ve been with, even when they turn out to be some version of straight after all, has always been worth something to me. I am, perhaps, a little too enabling.”

And then he winks, saying in other words he’s a little too gay sometimes.

Yuuri is buzzing the whole time, despite not being drunk.

In a bold move, he takes Victor’s hand, leading him to his apartment in mid afternoon. For one thing because it’s right there, but also because Victor had stood in front of him outside the café with a smile so endearing, warm gloved hand on his elbow, and the likes of a goodbye kiss waiting on his lips—maybe Yuuri’s just imagining that last part—that he couldn’t find it in him to just leave things there. There’s an acute singsonging hum that underlies every one of his words when he offers Victor, in a tone that he’s never heard from himself before.

He goes about this without anything at all prepared.

His apartment feels suddenly small, having exactly enough space and stuff for one person and no more. The furniture layout carves a single straightforward path. He never has guests.

Maybe it’s all too obvious from the way Victor has to squeeze his shoes onto the wood floor instead of the front mat. But he tries his best to be accomodating in Yuuri’s quaint little space. He holds firm to all his things against his body, lets out a sigh like he’s just taken a fresh breath of air, and, perhaps most egregious of all, still makes himself look so Vogue in the surrounding Ikea that Yuuri nearly has a mental breakdown.

Shifting everything to one arm, Victor brings a hand up to smooth the blush on Yuuri’s cheek with his thumb, turning his chin. Something soft plays in Yuuri’s ear when Victor leans in, and a sweet scent wafts along with him.

“So, did you have anything in mind for us today?”

Yuuri takes in a small breath, sounding frighteningly audible in the quiet room, and Victor waits, ever so calm and considerate.

“We don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do,” Victor reminds him.

Yuuri nods, forcing himself to relax a little bit. He instructs Victor to place his stuff wherever—the couch, the floor, somewhere out of the way.

Even though they’re only standing there facing each other in the middle of his plain barely lived in living room, Victor somehow makes it seem like they’re a couple on a romantic getaway, on their honeymoon after several years of adoring commitment, or reuniting after an agonizing length of time apart.

He doesn't know if this is Victor's doing. Whenever Yuuri has his hand held like this, squeezed, held tight, he practically begs to be kissed. He feels it well up in his lips, an almost instinctual urge, pushing him forward as someone completely different from his usual self.

In that moment, he doesn’t care about pre-established intimacy. Whatever this is, it’s enough. He loses all train of thought.

And for those short moments when all he can do is wait impatiently with nerves wracking his chest because he can’t bring himself to make the first move, he thinks—there must be something immensely wrong with him.

“How’s that?” Victor says in what Yuuri can only describe as his attractive voice, after their lips finally press together and Yuuri focuses on everything that it feels like. For those first few seconds he can feel Victor wanting it, what it feels like for someone to want him. “Good?”

“Mm.”

“Not satisfied yet?”

He says that but Yuuri already finds himself breathless and hypnotized all at once, with Victor carefully and delicately rubbing along his skin, in places no one else has ever been, so as not to be too much of a shock. More, Yuuri prompts, becoming addicted to how indescribably soft it is. Again.

He isn’t in middle school or high school or even in university. Yuuri never has a sexual awakening. He never has a realization. It’s a slow journey, tumultuous at times, like an orchid trying to bloom in a spring that’s too cold. There aren’t verifiable indicators, no aha! moments. Yuuri is on-and-off freezing rain, having no idea what state he wants to be in, yet managing to fall consistently hard and cold and unpleasant all at the same time.

Victor asks him if this has made anything clearer for him between soft pecks at the corner of his mouth, hand gentle around the side of his neck, like he’s encouraging Yuuri in good faith towards the answer. How is it? Do you like it? Is this— _am I_ —good enough for you?

Mom and Dad—you have no idea how lonely it’s been, so desperately in need of any shred of intimacy. And Victor is someone who’s been so kind to him, that Yuuri has no idea what the basis is for him liking this thing that they have going here. He can’t tell what this is exactly. Deciding whether he’s gay or bi or whatever it may be seems so beyond rationale, seeming almost insignificant at this point. He finds himself basking in, drinking in, the gaze that Victor has on him—Victor, who is so extremely patient and warm to his non-answers—that it doesn’t feel as if anything else matters. Yuuri wonders if he’ll ever have a satisfying enough answer for himself.

“Can we… can we just do this?” he says breathlessly, biting at his lip, wishing they didn’t have to stop at all.

“Just this? You want to keep going?” Victor’s tone isn’t unwanting, either.

“Is that okay?”

Yuuri’s glasses are falling down his face, kind of getting in the way, but Victor pushes them back up the bridge of his nose for him, running the edge of his finger lightly across Yuuri’s cheek. “Sure. I thought maybe you were having second thoughts.”

“No. I wasn’t. Sorry.”

“Oh, don’t apologize. Go ahead and do what your heart desires.”

Yuuri goes back to mapping out Victor’s body, more slowly this time, sliding his hands up and up the lines of Victor’s torso, focusing on what it means to him, ingraining it into his mind. He meets Victor’s open mouth again, closing his eyes.

Take your time, Victor says to him, forming around Yuuri’s touch, taking it in as well. There’s no rush and there’s no time limit when it comes to these things. There’s nothing of the sort. And it’s not as if there has to be something tangible at the end of the road, either.

Yuuri thinks about Victor as a man, about the deep pitch of his voice in the groans that Yuuri pulls from him. When he drags a hand down Victor’s shoulder and his arms, he thinks about the lean muscle that’s there, the way Victor’s hand is larger than his, flirting domineeringly with his fingers and losing every time. When he arches forward, he’s aware of the solidness of Victor’s chest and the waistline hidden there behind ruffles of sleek fabric.

He wants Victor to keep touching him like this, to keep hooking his thumbs through the belt loops of Yuuri’s pants, hands taut, squeezing his legs, holding him there. He wants to be paid attention to, cherished, and taken care of.

He doesn’t say any of this aloud, but he still feels warm as if it’s been pulled out of him anyway.

At the end of it, Yuuri finally does feel some form of satiated, and Victor confesses a strange thing—that he might have had a tiny bit of an ulterior motive himself about this whole thing and hopes that Yuuri will forgive him.

“No straight guy has ever tucked my shirt back in for me after touching me all over.” Victor laughs, eyes glistening, sounding so profound and affable, like he isn’t usually like this or this isn’t how things usually go.

“You’re attracted to straight guys?” Yuuri discerns, still sitting halfway into Victor’s lap.

Yuuri purses his lips, heart still beating. He edges his fingertips along Victor’s lower abdomen, over his shirt, in a tiny little tap dance, wondering how anyone could treat Victor in any way less than this.

“Haha...” Victor tilts his head in amusement, with an expression on his face like he’s never had this actually said to him before. “Usually. But it’s more like… I keep finding myself holding out hope for the wrong people.”

It’s so self-gratifying, is what it is. Victor’s simple explanation is that he can’t help it. He’s drawn to them. There’s an excitement that comes with pining after someone so far removed from yourself that you start to have only good fantasies associated with them. They never would. They wouldn’t for anyone else. But they _could_. Just for you. It’s such an ego boost. Yuuri understands, right?

And Yuuri’s eyebrows furrow at the idea of knowingly setting yourself up for failure, not quite able to come up with a rebuttal. Me too? Yuuri wonders. Is he included in one of the wrong people Victor holds out hope for? So, in the end he doesn’t say anything at all.

He leads Victor to the door, thanking him for the whole experience. It was very eye-opening to say the least.

Victor leans in for one last kiss before he goes—that goodbye kiss that they didn’t get to before. It seeps bittersweet between their lips, something they both want and don’t want at the same time.

Before turning around, Victor holds his gaze, letting a few stagnating moments pass between them.

“Will I see you again?”

And Yuuri, foot halfway outside into the hallway, eyes glazed, and still loving the way Victor looks in that designer scarf, gives a sincere nod to that promise. “Yeah.”

-

Dear Mom and Dad, you’re right. Technology is the worst thing ever. Or, perhaps, the reliance on it, at least.

Yuuri spends the next few days mentally berating himself, ruminating in the new stress this has caused him now as punishment.

He’d deleted the app and his account from his phone before even showing up to his first meeting with Victor in an attempt to force this into being a one time only thing. He didn’t want to make meeting strangers a habit.

But it was their only way to communicate. He’d completely forgotten to get Victor’s number. And he can’t let go of the fact that the spot on the couch smells a little differently, messing with his head—refreshing citrus in an ice cold drink.

Is this a sign? Is this telling him this is how things are supposed to be? Should he be walking away from this with his hands clean and a gratefulness that things didn’t turn out worse than they could have?

_Swipe, swipe, swipe._

_Swipe, swipe, swipe._

_Swipe, swipe, swipe._

_Swipe, swipe, swipe._

_Swipe, swipe, swipe._

_Swipe, swipe, swipe._

He fantasizes about one day looking back on this and laughing about it, about telling the story of having to recreate a dating profile, and focusing a ludicrous amount of energy on a specific image in his head for days on end. He’ll refrain from saying it’s also the lingering taste in his mouth.

-

 _Girls intimidate him_ , he tells Victor.

He can’t help it. It feels like there’s a huge gap of difference between them, something that can’t be closed easily. He wants to feel natural and comfortable and it simply doesn’t happen with many of them. It’s not their fault. He overthinks every action as subtly flirtatious, and it’s a horrifying level of scary, until he inevitably shies away, frozen stiff with a persistent edge that he can’t take off unless he has a few drinks. Then he no longer cares about understanding them or having them understand him.

It’s strange. He feels in such a hurry to say this.

Victor says he’d like to see that, with a smile that can be seen even through the phone. _A tipsy Yuuri trying to capture someone’s attention!_ But Yuuri has a feeling Victor’s not picturing him chasing after girls, or anybody else for that matter.

-

The next time they meet is somewhere in the middle. He apologizes endlessly to Victor about when he deleted by accident, who brushes it off like it happens to all of them.

“I’ve wanted to ask,” Yuuri says casually, though if he’s being honest it’s been on his mind since Victor first talked about this, “who asked who out?”

“He asked me,” Victor responds, cradling his mug of coffee in his hands, swishing the liquid around in slow rounds. “And I turned him down.”

“Why?”

Victor shrugs. “Probably thought I was too cool for it or something. I was pretty insufferable and prom was the last thing on my mind at the time. I just wanted to get in and get out, you know? Of school, I mean.”

“I thought you of all people would be into something like prom.”

“You’d think, huh?”

“Yeah…” Yuuri squints. In fact, he’d like to see Victor with a carnation tucked into his shirt pocket, or around his wrist, or in his hair. Formal. Looking handsome.

“He fucked another girl after that.”

“Oh…”

He's not sure what to say. Yuuri’s reminded of a time when he would have responded to something like this with a joke and complete obliviousness to the feelings of heartbreak and betrayal this causes.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay.” Victor laughs, used to it, over it. “It was a long time ago.”

“But it was your first love?”

“First loves are meaningless.”

Don’t say that. Please. Yuuri bites his lip, looking up at Victor. He thinks about school-age Victor being a rebel, doing crazy things, breaking hearts. It plays like a supercut, all the best parts packed into one devilish smile.

Victor puts his chin in his palm against the table and smiling with absolutely no regard for what he’s saying. “Are you going to go off and try the same things you did with me but with a girl? Just to see?”

“What do you mean?” Yuuri’s breath is dry. Why does that have to sound like an accusation to him?

But Victor is being so pleasant about it, like he’s advising Yuuri on different coloured paint chips to brighten up his dreary living room wall. “You should know what you want for sure.”

“I guess,” Yuuri says, but even to his own ears it sounds less like an agreement and more like a sarcastic acceptance. He sits, slouched in his chair, hands in his lap. “Is that what you did? Even though you’re gay?”

“With a girl? Mmm. Yeah, at some point? And after that, I can say with certainty _never again_... but because of that I know for sure now! I’ve always felt pretty bad. It must not have been very good for her. Girls have a hard enough time as it is.”

Yuuri frowns, even in the face of Victor smiling brightly at him.

“A girl,” Yuuri repeats, slightly caustic.

“Mmhm. Girls. They’re really... something… huh? Haha?”

Yuuri can’t say anything, he knows that. He has no experience. And it's all in the past. Victor has no idea of his feelings. In just these few weeks, deletion and distance has made his heart grow fonder. He can’t imagine what it’s like for people who actually know Victor for longer.

He involuntarily pictures a girl that has no name with long dark hair dangling over Victor’s face, seeing her as some sexy thing, delicately touching his cheek. She has red lipstick. She’s wearing a black dress. Her slender arms and long nails drift downwards along Victor’s chest. Victor’s own expression is nondescript, having no reaction. They’re both beautiful. It should be natural. But he’s a million miles away and not enjoying it, and Yuuri feels struck. Unfairly shafted.

“I don’t like that,” Yuuri says, as if in his place. It’s as simple as that.

“Ah?”

“I don’t like it!” Yuuri exclaims a little louder, and then he covers the lower half of his face with his hands at the thought of the whole café hearing him.

Victor curls his lip, eyes delighting. “Pff, you’re cute.”

“There’s nothing cute about it,” Yuuri mumbles through his fingers, closing his eyes in concentration to really think about it. “Even if you were just trying it out, you and a girl… I mean, girls are fine. But _you_ and a girl… you’re too… you’re too—you weren’t being true to yourself. It’s just, I don’t think, it just doesn’t…” He doesn’t know what he’s saying. Victor’s lips are glossed pink for crying out loud.

“ _Yuuri!_ ”

Victor tries to pull him from his senses. Yuuri is trembling, dry sniffing, for reasons out of his periphery—and Victor touches his hand, smoothing over his palm.

“Some things you do because you’re stupid and some you do because you have a rational thinking mind,” he says, letting out a sigh, “And, frankly, the time with that first boy feels stupider to me. I listened to my feelings and followed my heart and I didn’t get a happy ending, and I’ve never really had anything as substantial since then. With the girl, I consciously thought to myself that maybe I’ll follow the path of least resistance for once. But it’s funny the amount of _monumental_ effort it took to feign interest and keep things going even through the… the… the cognitive dissonance. It’s fascinating to me how things are just assumed. You’re expected to want so easily. It all made sense to me at the time, in the same way a lot of people tell you that things make sense because they’re just supposed to. I’d take her hand and I’d think _this is good_ with a question mark? And I was waiting for that exclamation mark or even a period. I considered settling without it. I say there’s nothing tangible at the end of the road, but I think I’ve concluded that’s just for me. I have hope that you’ll find a happy ending for yourself, Yuuri. You’re much more honest with yourself than I am. You deserve it.”

Victor smiles again, reassuring. But a little bit... unsure.

He says all that like there’s no space for himself in the picture. He’ll be okay with Yuuri continuing to use him as a testing ground, as another one time thing for a second time.

And Yuuri seems to see it so clearly now—Victor sitting in his room or on his vaguely-coloured living room couch and scrolling through his phone for another rendezvous, only to completely miss Yuuri’s name and wonder for a moment if his finger had slipped. Yuuri doesn’t want to give more credit to himself than is due, so he convinces himself that Victor isn’t upset by this, that he doesn’t flick desperately up and down his list of conversations, doesn’t consider whether someone had messed with his phone, doesn’t question whether any of it was even real. Heartbroken. That he doesn’t think anything of it.

Yuuri’s never felt this loved by a fantasy. But usually fantasy is all he has.

-

Dear Mom and Dad—he might be bisexual after all. He’s theoretically sure but not practically. Still, it’s something he’s decided and doing so is pretty important to him.

Victor comes with him to the drugstore the next time they make a trip, and Yuuri now has someone who’ll listen when he points out all the different condom brands and how crazy some of the labels seem. The selection here is just as diverse as it is back at Yuuri's local one, and for some reason now there's something oddly comforting and supportive about seeing _this_ much. Victor only laughs and takes hold of Yuuri’s hand and they walk out of the store with a purchase.

Inside Victor’s condo halfway across the city, Yuuri waits with bated breath on the couch with his hands fisted in his lap. Victor had said that he wanted to put it on himself first so he could be sure, and if Yuuri could wait for him like a darling. Of course, he would. He wants nothing else than for Victor to feel comfortable.

When Victor eventually comes out from the bathroom, he’s nearly silent. He’s slow as he pads across the floor, nervous even, stopping wordlessly in front of Yuuri on the couch.

He bends over to trail a hand over the seat of the couch, and then a finger over Yuuri’s knee, kneeling down in front of him on the floor. Yuuri waits for him, still and patient.

It’s like he wants to draw attention away from it. Victor runs his hands up from the front of Yuuri’s legs, over the curve of his knees. Sitting up until his back is straight and he’s level with Yuuri, his eyes are drawn to the side, fighting the urge to lick or blot the crimson red colour on his lips.

“How do you like it...?” he asks tentatively.

He’s still holding the metal tube of lipstick in his hand.

Yuuri doesn’t say anything at first, bringing a hand up to rub his thumb gently to the corner of Victor’s lip just shy of being able to smear it—he doesn’t want to ruin anything. The colour is deep and vibrant, not subtly pink like he would have on before, with what almost looks like a little bit of gold sparkle coming through even though Yuuri’s not sure if that had come from the lipstick or if it’s what Victor’s skin naturally produces himself.

“I love it,” Yuuri whispers, his own mouth parting, feeling his heart thump in a tender rhythm. “You look beautiful.”

“Really?”

Yuuri makes a slight nod of his head, not being able to tear his eyes away. He wishes Victor would look properly at him. “I think I’ve always had a thing for red lipstick.”

“Really?” Victor says again, long eyelashes fluttering as he blinks, trying hard not to move his mouth so he can remain picturesque.

“Yeah. I like it when it’s on girls. But I like it on you a lot.”

Victor blushes and Yuuri can feel it radiate over his cheeks when he’s allowed to hold Victor’s face for a bit, leaning into his touch, until Yuuri encourages him right into his lap, straddling. Victor, with his brilliant lip and gold lipstick case that he drops onto the arm of the couch, forms so easily against him.

Yuuri doesn’t even want to bother with trying to explain it other than that it’s so pleasing, aesthetically and otherwise. Victor is an aesthetic in and of himself. His eyelids look sleepy up close. His skin is soft. He has dark circles that he tries his best to cover up with concealer but will forever stay due to genetics. They come out a little more when he turns his head just this way. But Yuuri can’t help thinking he looks so damn cool, feeling so privileged just to be able to see this.

“You’re so unfair.” Yuuri sucks in a breath, feeling excited. “Everything looks good on you.”

Finally, Victor looks at him, faintly surprised. He’s been wearing surprise so often lately.

He turns Yuuri’s chin, pressing his lips to the side of Yuuri’s cheek, spending an awfully long time there. He only lets go only once Yuuri starts squirming at how excessive he’s being.

He leans back, admiring, and Yuuri can’t tell what the kiss mark looks like on himself but he notices Victor’s lips are just a little less sheer, a little over the edges.

“Now you look good, too,” Victor tells him with an embarrassed smile. His fingers play with the hairs at the back of Yuuri’s head, sighing, “I’ve always wanted to do this.”

“Don’t tell me. The sorta-straight boys didn’t let you wear lipstick?” Yuuri frowns a little. He can’t relate. He really likes it—feeling marked—being someone’s—as well as the way his gaze is drawn towards Victor’s lips and he doesn’t have to come up with an excuse for his blatant staring.

Victor shakes his head. “It’s not that they didn’t let me. It’s more like… they just didn’t like it. And made me feel sad whenever I brought it up.”

“It didn’t remind them of girls?”

“...It probably only reminded them of how much I wasn’t a girl.”

Yuuri leans forward, pressing his own kiss to Victor’s collarbone, to the centre of his Adam’s apple that moves every time Victor can’t stay still, tickled from Yuuri’s touch. “Well, you’re definitely not a girl,” Yuuri says, his hand finding Victor’s to squeeze.

“No,” Victor agrees.

Victor makes for a kiss on Yuuri’s other cheek, just as long lasting as the other, but this one is done in sensationalized relief. He makes such a show of it. Like a wax seal that needs passion instead of pressure and then gets messy all over the place.

It goes to Yuuri’s jaw. Then the corner of his lips.

“Victor.”

His forehead. Very carefully to his eyelid and then the other. Leaving marks absolutely everywhere. Yuuri squeezes his eyes shut when Victor is reluctant to let him go. There’s no need to worry—he’s not going anywhere.

“It’s gonna get all over,” Yuuri pleads with him.

“That’s the point,” Victor murmurs.

Victor doesn’t let up, not until he’s covered Yuuri all over, not even sure if there’s any colour left to leave anymore. But still, Yuuri feels more and more filled up until he’s a completed canvas.

He sits with his hands curled into Victor’s hair, not letting him go too astray, waiting for him to settle into the most important place. Of course, Victor insists that he isn’t forgetting about it. He’s simply saving the best for last. That’s his bad habit. Victor has too many bests.

And Yuuri says he’s impatient. He wants the best first, and waits for Victor to figure out what that means to him. Being indulged like this is going to become a bad habit of his own, adding to the already sordid list of meeting strangers online and taking them home and no longer giving thought to the lines dividing admiration and attraction and action. It doesn’t feel as if he needs to worry so much about being on a certain side.

Victor finally does kiss his lips, long and slow and deservedly so after how he’s made Yuuri wait.

But they're still young. They devolve into doing it feverishly afterward. Victor keeps being tender to him, keeps bringing things out of Yuuri that he doesn’t even know were there, keeps quashing every worry, making it feel like he hasn’t missed a single thing and won't for a long time.

 

**Author's Note:**

> if only online dating was this easy?
> 
> maybe shade no. rose water is the shade that victor normally wears lol


End file.
